The furniture arrives, wellness coach A.J. leaves and Lindsay admits to having a glass of wine.
Here we are at the episode 5 recap of Lindsay on OWN, the docuseries that follows Lindsay Lohan post rehab and living in New York City, and we learn that Lindsay has had a glass of wine but apparently it’s really not that big of a deal. Let’s start at the beginning. It’s been 18 days since Lindsay moved into her New York apartment and she’s still waiting for her furniture and the rest of her items to arrive from Los Angeles.
Killing time while waiting for her stuff, Lindsay starts going through her clothes to see what she can sell. The options seem limitless, as most of the rooms in her apartment are filled with unpacked clothing boxes and professional garment racks housing a mix of high-end designer clothes and haute couture. Conveniently, Lindsay lives above a couture assignment shop, so all she needs to do (well really, all her assistant Matt Herrell needs to do) is haul her items downstairs and work a lucrative deal for her, right?! Nope, not exactly.
While it could have been a potential moneymaker for the starlet, that opportunity was killed once Lindsay and her mom, Dina Lohan, started giddily shopping through the racks at the consignment store and quickly amassing a handful of items.
“There’s so much cool stuff here — this is like dangerous,” Lindsay says. Ah, yeah, so get out of there, right!?! Take your money and run. Didn’t happen. Instead, Lindsay and Dina out-shopped their potential earnings. This meant Lindsay had to go back to her wardrobe and cough up some higher-end items to make the trade work. From what we saw of the negotiations, the women running the couture shop made out on this deal. 
Lindsay’s personal assistant, Matt, was all about getting the job done and getting Dina and Lindsay what they wanted without actually spending money. Truly Harrell could have bartered harder over the value of Lindsay’s items and the marketability of them — these are from “Lindsay Lohan’s Prada collection” sales approach. But, whatever, the guy’s got way too much on his hands as it is and he made it relatively stress free for Lindsay.
Lindsay recaps: Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4
Next up, the moving trucks arrive but it’s on a scheduled shooting day (when OWN cameras are allowed to be at Lindsay’s apartment filming). Since Lindsay’s apartment is considerably smaller than her Los Angeles home, some of her things need to go to Long Island (to Dina’s house) and some will stay at the apartment. Determining what goes where was one hot mess. Matt, however, had somewhat of a handle on things at first. As boxes and boxes and boxes were hauled into her apartment, it was later determined that those boxes, and boxes, and boxes, needed to go back into the moving truck as it was just too overwhelming not knowing where everything would go and if it could all fit. Matt and Lindsay’s celebrity health & wellness coach, A.J. Johnson, focus on getting furniture in first, realizing secondary items can come later. Good plan. This masterminding is all done while Lindsay is still holed up in her bedroom sleeping.
While it’s great her stuff is here, A.J. tells cameras, it also represents the former chaos of her life. A.J. quickly tries to create a small place of normalcy within the mess setting up a sitting area with fragrance candles. Both A.J. and Matt are afraid Lindsay is going to freak out when she sees how small the space is with all the boxes.
Matt unsuccessfully tries to wake Lindsay around 10:40am, about an hour later he gets a message from Lindsay asking him if he can get the OWN filming crew to leave. Not going to happen. Harrell actually keeps his cool and makes everything work, but we barely see Lindsay in this process. We get glimpses of Lindsay being overwhelmed, most likely realizing she has too much stuff and no where to put it but anyone would be that way, to relaxing with her pal (not boyfriend) Liam Dean.
The losers here were the moving crew, who had to unloaded and reloaded her stuff. One of the movers confessed that in his 25 years of being in the business, this was only the second time this has happened. Working with celebrities does come with some perks, though; after all it’s a good story to share with friends and family.
Now that the furniture is finally in place, it’s time for Lindsay to go back to Los Angeles for some “career advancing meetings” – discussions with some producers and directors (most likely for her next project, Inconceivable). A.J. also set up a meeting for Lindsay with her friend, Sony executive DeVon Franklin. Lindsay and A.J. review the game plan for Lindsay’s LA venture and agree that Lindsay will stay with A.J. while out there, but things don’t go as planned.
Tensions arise when A.J. she starts questioning Lindsay on her meditation time. This, we learn, is a topic Lindsay doesn’t feel she needs to share with anyone — it’s her time and her safe zone. It’s the one thing she believes she can truly manage and control on her own without having to report in to someone. That we can understand and respect, but A.J. continues with the questioning.
“I don’t feel like I need someone reminding me to do that,” Lindsay tells A.J. about her meditation time. “It’s when I have other voices coming in that I feel judged, reprimanded, that I feel condescended.” She explains how she’s found success managing her meditation time on her own because she controls that versus someone telling her she needs to do it and pressuring her about it. But then things go really sour when A.J. asks her about drinking and tells Lindsay that Dina told her that she was drinking. Clearly feeling betrayed by A.J. for even mentioning this in front of cameras, Lindsay denies the accusation and tells A.J. if this was the case she would be talking to Michael about it and would have gone to a meeting. She tells A.J. this is a topic she doesn’t feel comfortable discussing in front of the camera. “I thought, you as my friend,” would have addressed this in private, Lindsay says, clearly offended by the tactic.
Lindsay goes to LA for seven days and she never contacts A.J. during that time. She also did not allow the trip to be filmed. While in LA, tabloids question Lindsay’s sobriety. A photograph of Lindsay reaching for a bottle of wine and a headline that asks: “Is the actress off the wagon?” She admits to having a glass of wine, but what’s surprising is how little attention is given to that detail and the fact that cameras never show it when it’s a series about a celebrity managing sobriety. Anyone addressing this?
So the series is at 87 days post rehab. Lindsay’s sobriety is in question. Her life coach A.J. is ticked about being blown off. And Lindsay is apparently over A.J.
A.J. tells cameras that she had no idea what Lindsay was doing in LA and that she can understand that plans change, however, “there’s a level of consideration that friends should have for friends” in regards to communication. It’s probably the same level of consideration A.J. could have used when determining her on-camera/off-camera questioning strategy with Lindsay. Looks like the two are even.
Oh wait, it’s back to New York and Lindsay’s relieved to be back, but she’s refusing to see A.J. Apparently this one’s not going to be tit for tat. After A.J. gets a formal denial to see Lindsay from Matt, she decides, it’s time for her to go.
The episode ends with a tearful Lindsay, clearly feeling some remorse over the loss of someone she considered to be a friend. “She was a friend to me when I didn’t have friends in New York and a guiding light — someone I found trust and solace in,” Lindsay says. Although Lindsay says she felt disrespected by A.J. for asking her “certain things on camera” she surmises her time with her as “a blessing in disguise.”
Let’s hope more blessings come her way.
